The following text is a translation of
Discovering Formigal, by u/Alcaraz.
Discovering Formigal – Christmas 2012
As some of you may know I live in Ciudad Real and the closest ski resort to us is Sierra Nevada. For that reason my family and I have always spent Christmas there.
This year, due to lack of snow, we decided to change location, even if it meant doing a bunch of extra kilometres. Formigal looked like one of the resorts with the best snow conditions for the Christmas period so we decided to go there.
With this report I will try to explain our experience during the trip and help others who may be planning a trip to Formigal, at the same time as giving a heads up on the snow conditions in the resort. Here we go
It all started on the
22nd of December at 3:00 AM, ahead of us a 671km road trip and around 7 hours drive:
It may seem like a long trip at first but it went by quite fast thanks to the fact that most of us were sleeping for most of it xD the driver cannot say the same thing
These are some pictures taken while driving through Guadalajara, I was awake on this stretch
At 7AM we got to Soria. Passing by Medinaceli...
Right before getting to Zaragoza, at about 8:45, we got a shot of the Moncayo
After driving past Aragon's capital city, on the way to Huesca along the A-23:
Getting close to Guara Range and Monrepos Pass:
At the pass:
Once over the pass we started descending towards Sabiñanigo, and drooling with the views of Aragon´s Pyenees:
The white delicacy is getting closer
Búbal-Saqués-Escarrilla … c'mon, we´re almost there:
Snow is starting to appear on both sides of the road:
Something appears over there hehehe
WE GOT THERE! All right, time to look for our hotel
Once we located it we headed to Sextas to get our mountain passes and drive around the valleys in the resort:
On the way to Portalet we noticed the big difference in the amount of snow between Sextas and the border; now we understand why Aramón did not install webcams in Sextas!
We were in French land for a bit, just fooling around LOL
After that we went back to the hotel because the next day we would need all our energy to get familiar with all the areas in the resort. During the trip back to the hotel we took some more pictures that show the lack of snow in the Sextas area...
Dinner and straight to bed, tomorrow will begin the enticing part of this trip...
December 23rd, firt day of ski:
The morning sun from our hotel window:
We had breakfast and left for the slopes:
Tres Hombres-Sextas area:
Down by the slopes in Sextas it was not cold at all, around 6ºC at 9:30
We begin our tour around the resort, up the Sallent lift and down
the River as a warm up. Then on to Izas-Sarrios valley:
Escarra and Huegas T-bars:
High area at Izas looked epic:
We did a few runs on the blue slopes at Sarrios and then towards Anayet through the gap
Getting in the valley:
Midi d'Ossau:
We went
by Midi and got to the valley bottom:
We continued towards France - grabbed the Garmet chairlift, went down
Batallero, and back up the same chair to get back to Anayet.
Between Anayet and Portalet
Formigal in the distance
Except for the area around Sextas, few snow making machines were on
Straight away we went down
La Glera and then up Anayet chair lift to get back to Izas-Sarrios.
Images taken from the top (Collado), just at the start of the
Pico Royo run:
This is the turn off to
Courloir Mirador which gives you goose bumps - what on earth is there behind that?
Lunch in Izas and then spent the afternoon relaxing in Sarrios:
Off-piste in Pico Royo:
These are the slopes at Izas, amazingly carpeted with snow
We ended the day going back to the parking lot down the Río run:
8 ºC in Cantal …
And that was the end of the day - our objective accomplished, to go from Sextas to Portalet and get familiar with the resort. Tomorrow, during the lessons, we will get to know all the hidden corners of this mountains.
This is a map with all the runs we did today:
At the end of the
Río run from the car - lower elevations are badly in need of a good dump:
On route to the hotel:
December 24th, today is when the fun starts, we have ski lessons from 10am to 1pm, ripping it up all over the resort as well as improving our technique.
At 9am we were already in Sextas warming up before start
suffering this resort, hahaha
At 10 we started with the shenanighans by riding up the Sallent to head towards Sarrios, and then from there on to Anayet. Up the Garmet and down the
Corona run to get to Portalet and ride the Espelunciecha lift.
First hadcore descent,
Corvas, turned my legs into jelly.
Retuning to Anayet, and from there on to Sarrios, to do a few lines down the red slopes by the Huegas Tbar.
And we finished the day with a couple of runs in the Tres Hombres area
To sum up the day:
We had lunch in Sextas with the family and then did a few more runs in the afternoon in Izas-Sarrios and Tres Hombres-Sextas valleys.
Pictures from Cantal:
In spite of temperatures being quite high the snow was still in good condition
Lanuza Tbar, in Sarrios; this area looked like a fridge, snow was in such a good condition
Powder in the lower part of Sarrios
Me with the "Collado" in the background:
Again, returning to Sextas by the run
el Río:
December 25th turns out to be grey and overcast, but this does not stop us from enjoying ourselves:
As the previous day, we did some warm ups before the lessons tarted:
We headed up at 10:05, today we will ski around Tres Hombres:
We go down
El Río to grab Tramacastilla Tbar, I have to say I absolutely loved the views around here
Run down
Descenso and
Tres Hombres and up Crestas chair lift.
We wanted to sneak in
El Bosque run but it was closed. However the
Couloir Tosquera wasn´t so we headed there.
We got to the bottom of Crestas chair lift and again went up, this time to gown
Stadium slope all the way from top to bottom - yesterday we only did a section and we were keen to do the whole thing haha. This is a great run, which we linked with
Descenso to get to Sextas.
Then we hopped on Sallent and Collado chairs and we got in towards Anayet going down
Midi,
La Carbonera and
Mina.
All this time it was spitting rain under 1,700m, at times turning to stronger rain but nothing too bad. At higher altitudes, over 1,800 to 1,900m there was a light snowfall that wasn´t sticking but was enought to cover your goggles with snow.
After Anayet we returned to Sarrios by the
Collado, visibility was still good here, hiwever in the higher part of Tres Hombres the clouds were truly closing up.
There was not much left to do so we did a few runs around Tres Hombres and put an end to the day. Let´s not forget that this is the only resort in Spain that closes at 2pm on Christmas day.
This shows the runs we did today:
In Cantal we got our picture taken by a photographer from the ski school. I would like to send my greetings from here
You are great guys!
In Sextas we returned our lift pass to get back our fee and then headed home - even though the fee is only 3€ there is no reason to give them to Aramon, is there?.
On the way back to Jaca:
On the route back home through Pamplona we decided to stay at a rural hotel located in Aizpún, a village only 30km from Pamplona, to tak a break, enjoy the views and relax. We stayed here from the 25th till the 27th:
Val de Goñi is the valley where the village is located:
There was snow!
The following day we drove to Ciudad Real, about 650km far from Pamplona - we went for a stroll along some of the most remarkable streets in the city such as Estafeta, Mañueta and the city council´s square:
Castillo square:
And of course, we visited Reyno de Navarra to get some CA Osasuna merchandise
After this last stop we drove all the way to Ciudad Real
These pics were taken arriving to my home land, there is no mountains around here...
All in all this was an excellent trip with the family. If I had to give Formigal a grade, from my point if view as somebody who has never been to the Pyrenees before, I would give it a 9: access to the resort is good, great snow conditions, amazing runs... I will for sure come back
On a negative note some of the lifts were a bit slow and snow was a bit lacking in some sectors at lower altitudes, but everything else forementioned made up for this.
And that´s all folks, thank you for reading this brick wall, I hope you enjoyed
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!